


Disillusionment

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Why Jim left the army





	Disillusionment

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'army'

  
Disillusionment

  
by Bluewolf

  
Disillusionment.

  
That was the only word Jim could think of to describe his reaction when the army finally sent a team in to investigate what had happened to his squad. Originally supposing that Mathis and his men were his relief, Jim was horrified to learn that this was - finally, after eighteen months - an investigation into what had happened to him and his men; a satellite photo had shown up a downed Huey and a cluster of seven graves. Mathis' group had been sent in to see if the eighth man in the squad had survived, as well as retrieve the seven bodies.

  
Frankly, Jim - although admitting to feeling somewhat tired - would in many ways have been happier being left in Peru with the Chopek, but he obeyed orders and went back to America with Mathis. 

  
At his debriefing, he discovered that his Huey had been in the wrong area.

  
It hadn't occurred to him, in the days of shock and pain following the crash - even though he hadn't been seriously injured - that any of the paperwork he had been given would still be there. When Mathis' men had checked the wreckage, however, it was to discover that enough of it had survived, even after the crash and eighteen months of lying rotting in the jungle, to show that the mistake had not been his, or the fault of any of his men; two numbers in the co-ordinates of their destination had been transposed - and there was no way of knowing which clerk had been responsible for that.

  
Yes, a search chopper had been sent at the time - to the proper co-ordinates - but that was all. When nothing was found there, his team had simply been abandoned. Jim was of the opinion that Colonel Oliver should have extended the search - if he had been the top officer, he certainly would have done so - although he had to admit that a little over fifty miles from where they were meant to be was perhaps a little too far to justify committing resources to searching for as long as it would have taken to find the downed Huey.

  
His period of enlistment had ended while he was missing; offered the choice of re-enlisting or taking an honorable discharge, he took the discharge. He had enjoyed his time in the army and had originally intended to re-enlist - but yes, he was disillusioned. He wanted out. And so he left the army and joined the police.

  
He had enjoyed his time with the Chopek, and knew he had done good work there - but that wasn't where he was supposed to have been. It was sheer chance that there had been a relatively small drug cartel operating in that area so that he hadn't realized he was in the wrong place; a cartel that he had indeed taken down. But how much more might he have accomplished if he had been in the right place? How much more suffering might he have prevented if he had been in a position to take out the larger operation?

  
Several years later, Jim discovered that it was Oliver who was responsible for the transposed numbers... Oliver, who had been involved with the drug cartel he was supposed to have been taking down. Oliver, who had a financial interest in seeing to it that Jim's mission failed.  
Oliver was the man who had been directly responsible for the deaths of seven good men.

And for that, Jim would never forgive him.


End file.
